


Lovers

by Kahvi



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 19:29:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4316976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having finally gotten over themselves enough to get together, Rimmer and Lister are forced to deal with the fact that they cannot actually touch. Unfortunately, there are more obstacles heading their way, all too quickly...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lovers

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2006.

“Dave...” Rimmer tried to twist himself into another position, but it was difficult with his light-bee clutched in the hands of the man now happily asleep and overlapping him with most of his solid body, which Rimmer still did envy him for, despite everything.

Lister mumbled in his sleep, and held the bee tighter to his fully clothed chest. They had spent all of last night talking, finally ending up here, in this mockery of an embrace. Rimmer sighed. It was not as unpleasant as he had thought it would be. In fact, it was rather... comfortable. As he wondered idly how many hours he would have to endure this pleasant captivity, Lister's eyes opened, blinking at the harsh light of the artificial morning. They searched around for a bit, narrowing, until they found Rimmer's face, and opened in synchrony with the beaming smile that did something odd to Rimmer's insides. “Hiya,” he croaked, with a cough in the tail-end.

“Good morning Listy,” Rimmer replied, trying for cheerfully superior, and almost resenting the soft note that seemed to have snuck up on his vocal chords while he wasn't paying attention. “Would you mind...” he indicated Lister's hand with the pointing of a finger half-way through the man's chest. After a few confused seconds of incomprehension, Lister mouthed an 'o', and let the only tangible part of Rimmer go. Taking some care to extract himself completely, Rimmer inched himself to the outer edge of the bunk. There was just about room for the two of them, lying like this. It would not be a very nice way to sleep, had he not been a hologram, he mused darkly, studying the calm, gentle face in front of him.

“Morning.” There was a searching look in Lister's eyes. They seemed to glitter as the tip of his tongue snaked out carefully, probably without him noticing, and licked the edges of his lips. Rimmer swallowed. He didn't quite know how to deal with all of this yet; it was still so new. And after all, he scorned himself, what was the use of dwelling on impossibilites? They could not touch, and Rimmer certainly could not feel. Hardly even when he touched himself, what little sensation he had being as watered out as the pathetic excuse for a beverage you got when using a tea-bag for the tenth or twentieth time.

Still, Lister's lips moved closer to his, brushing against the blasted interface of light which passed for his skin, the bastard giggling as, no doubt, the static electricity tickled his lips. It was too much. “Don't,” Rimmer mumbled, surprising himself with the harshness of his voice.

Lister looked confused. God, he was like a little child sometimes. So goited innocent-looking, when Rimmer knew he was anything but. “Wha?” The confusion turned to hurt, and Rimmer sighed, deeply.

“Look, this isn't going to work. I appreciate...” he hesitated, tasting the novelty of using the word where Lister was concerned, “...all of this. You're obviously trying very hard to,” he gestured vaguely, “make...”

“Rimmer.” Lister interrupted him rather rudely by sticking a finger straight through his mouth. The man's aim was accurate though, and Rimmer felt something stir inside him as he realized if he'd had an actual body, a real one, he could have... but Lister spoke again: “Arn. Man. Yer always looking at the negative.”

Incredulous, Rimmer spluttered; “Negative? Negative? I'm smegging dead, I haven't got a body, I can't smegging touch anything, and you're trying to make me see the positive side of this? Oh, splendid! Right then, miladdo, let's hear your brilliant outlook on the situation. Go on, tell me what clever plans you have for shagging someone who isn...” The reality of what he'd just said rammed home as the words left his non-existent lips, and Rimmer felt his cheeks turn the color of his uniform.

But Lister, true to form, just smiled. “There are ways, man.”

Rimmer swallowed, noting that Lister had not, as yet, removed that finger. He found his tongue trying to maneuver around it, and that felt sort of interesting. “What... what ways?”

Oh, that grin. That impossibly racy, almost x-rated grin, melting up into his eyes and jumping across to Rimmer's, giving him an annoyingly eager erection. “Ye'll see.” And with that, he moved his hand slowly down his own body, and – oh god – Rimmer could see, even through those coarse jeans evidence of the fact that Lister had a fairly sizable erection of his own, and that hand moving, and...

“Oi, fellas! Up and at 'em!” Was there an undertone of humor in Holly's usual deadpan? Rimmer would bet his holographic gonads on it, as he closed his eyes, panting.

“What's the trouble, Hol?” Lister, of course, was cheerful and alert as always, not seeming to care at all that they'd been smegging cuddling for that smug computerized git to see.

“Got a couple of intruders mucking about. Cat and Kryten are on their way down, but I think it's best if you chaps go along with 'em.” She did seem preoccupied, Rimmer noted, but oddly, not by what she must have seen going on in Rimmer's bunk.

“Intruders?” Rimmer frowned. “How the smeg did they get in here?”

Holly did her best to shrug, a fairly complicated move for an entity without shoulders, and looked around almost nervously. “I can't rightly tell, actually. Look, I think it might be best if you went and asked them yourselves. Deck 27, corridor H.” She blinked out of existence, and the man and the hologram exchanged a puzzled look before heading resolutely out the door.

* * *

Rimmer bit his lip as he trotted after Lister. He always found it annoying that, even with his longer legs and much better physical (albeit simulated) condition, he could never keep up with the man when the latter was agitated. Now, however, Rimmer had other things on his mind. The encounter had left him somewhat shaken, for reasons he found it hard to pinpoint exactly. His musings were however interrupted, suddenly, by Lister's questioning voice.

“Do you suppose they were telling the truth?” There was an odd, uncharacteristic hesitation in the man's manner which set Rimmer even more on edge.

“No,” he exclaimed with absolute certainty. The very idea was preposterous! “They were clearly some kind of simulants. Everyone knows you can't trust simulants. And you heard what he called me!”

Lister giggled. “But Rimmer, you are a smeghead! He was only agreeing with me.”

“Lovely,” Rimmer groused, “I'm sure you'll be the very bestest of friends. Right after he tears your head of and uses it for volley-ball practice.”

“Smeg off,” Lister chuckled, giving Rimmer the finger over his shoulder. “They didn't look much like simulants though,” Lister added, as they turned a corner, and stopped, abruptly.

Rimmer, lost in his attempts to come up with a really crushing reply, didn't notice in time, and careened into him, his bee bouncing off Lister's chest and coming to rest somewhere just outside the man's nose. As he caught his breath in order to scald the man for walking like a drunken scutter, he noticed that Lister's eyes were not looking at him, but rather at the absolutely-no-doubt-in-fecking-hell simulant parading leisurely towards them. And following that gaze, he saw to his increasing horror, the figure of Kryten on the opposite side. Knowing the mechanoid, knowing Lister, and seeing the way that clearly overcompensating-sized gun was pointed squarely at Lister, Rimmer could conceive of only one possible outcome. All he could do was stand back, and watch, in horror.

“Sir!” Kryten yelled, from the opposite side of the the hulking killing-machine, waving his hands in the air. “Don't you dare touch him, you miserable disgrace against machine kind!”

With sickening predictability, the simulant turned on its platform-booted heel, and set its sights on the mechanoid. Rimmer threw his arms around Lister, trying, impossibly, to make him stay put as Kryten was promptly enmeshed in a pulsing, red beam, left to slowly disintegrate, but his arms were made of light, and Lister didn't even need to struggle out of them. In two seconds flat, he was running, lunging at the already turning simulant, being swallowed by the beam as Rimmer screamed, because there was nothing else for him to do.

He couldn't move. There was no fear left in him, because there was no feeling left. The simulant, saying nothing, moved nonchalantly down a side-corridor, and Rimmer lifted his head slowly to see, on the other side of the corridor, behind where Kryten had stood precious seconds ago, the equally paralyzed figure of Cat. Their eyes met in sudden, grim understanding, and in a flash, they were both running in the same direction.

They couldn't have been right. That man, with his ridiculous haircut and cheeks like an obese dormouse couldn't be Lister. Not in any timeline. Not his Lister, dammit! His fingers were to stubby, his skin too dark, and there was a bloody goited cleft in his chin. How could anyone ever look adoringly, even lustily at Rimmer with a cleft in his chin like that? How could those too-full lips tell a hologram they loved him? Rimmer ran, his eyes foggy, his chest constricted as the Cat ran past him, clearly smelling those look-alikes, knowing, as he always did, exactly where to go. Rimmer envied him.


End file.
